Communication systems of various kinds are known in the art including wireless communication systems that trunk, or flexibly allocate and share, one or more communication resources amongst a plurality of potential and actual users. Such communication resources can include, for example, one or more carrier frequencies (including both radio and optical frequencies), time slots, spreading codes, and the like. In general, many such systems allocate (and de-allocate) such communication resources on an as-needed basis.
As the nature of the communication resource becomes more complicated, and particularly as the nature of the communication services being facilitated become more varied from one another, known communication resource allocation methodologies do not always lead to a desired or favorable allocation pattern. For example, some multi-carrier/multi-time slot systems serve multiple services such as a voice service and a multi-slot packet data service. The former tend to be characterized by relatively short session times while the latter tend towards longer session times. Furthermore, the former are usually serviceable with a single slot assignment while the latter often require expansion beyond the assignment of a single slot. While the dynamics of multi-slot packet data services hold the potential for both effective and efficient use of limited communication resources, present communication resource allocation methods and mechanisms often leave this potential substantially frustrated or unmet due, at least in part, to differences in characteristic system usage patterns and behaviors.
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